Strategy & Markets

As forecasted by IDTechEx, there has been a surge in orders for RFID in 2009. Despite the world's largest RFID project, the $6 billion China National ID card scheme, being completed a year earlier, the global RFID market is rising 5% this year to $5.56 billion, in the face of the global financial meltdown which has caused some car production, for example, to plummet by 50%. In many applicational sectors, RFID orders are up 10%.

In these days of environmental consciousness, what are RFID's green credentials? Is RFID a net positive or negative contributor to the campaign to help the planet?

IDTechEx announces the new report RFID Forecasts, Players & Opportunities 2009-2019, which addresses the global RFID situation. Areas of growth, undersupply and oversupply and trends are given based on extensive new primary research. The report provides an unprecedented level of forecasts split in many ways. Here the primary author, Raghu Das, gives a summary of the report findings.

Third Generation Active RFID is the Ubiquitous Sensor Network (USN) sometimes known as the Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) and characterized by the tag doubling as a reader and a so-called mesh network being used with a choice of sensors on each tag.

By value, we forecast that in 2009 the value of the RFID market will grow by 23% over 2008, and in 2010 it will grow by 25% over 2009 - not exponential, but still very strong growth.

The IDTechEx Knowledgebase of over 3,500 RFID projects in 109 countries illustrates how this market of over $5 billion is rapidly diversifying.

The US and China vie for the title of the world's largest RFID market, this year seeing them level pegging with $1.3 billion of business, which is looking to quintuple in the next ten years.

Numerous apparel companies have reported increased sales of up to 20% using RFID to monitor shelf stock levels. It is now emerging as the first major application of RFID in retail, with a strong business case. In 2008, IDTechEx research finds that 38% of the money spent on RFID in retail is specifically for apparel tagging. Here Dr Peter Harrop, Chairman of research firm IDTechEx, summarises the findings from the new IDTechEx report RFID in Apparel 2008-2018.

The global RFID market continues its rapid growth as record orders up to $0.5 billion each are serviced. This year demand for RFID is on target for $5.3 billion globally as it powers its way to $27 billion in 2018. Indeed, much is now happening in Europe, although it is the US and China that share top slot as RFID spenders at present.

NFC-enabled phones have yet to take off, despite phones with the Sony Felica interface, compatible with NFC, being placed in the hands of over 50 million Japanese in little more than two years - one of the fastest adoption rates for electronics ever. So why the delay? Here Dr Peter Harrop shares insight into the topic summarizing findings from the new IDTechEx report NFC-Enabled Phones and Contactless Smart Cards 2008-2018

"Europe is an interesting territory for RFID. So far, it lacks the huge orders in the USA, with two $0.5 billion projects currently being serviced there, and in China with the huge card and library schemes," says Dr Peter Harrop, Chairman, IDTechEx.

What a difference a year makes. RFID progress from highlights at the IDTechEx RFID Smart Labels USA event.

The largest RFID orders - here comes China - huge advances coming in HF RFID - new vibrant technologies.

The new IDTechEx report RFID Forecasts, Players & Opportunities 2008-2018 is the summation of extensive new research in late 2007 and early 2008 including interviews with RFID adopters and solution providers in the various applicational RFID markets, giving an unprecedented level of insight into the total RFID industry and what is really happening. Here Raghu Das, CEO, gives a summary of our findings.

Zebra Technologies has recently bought several impressive RFID companies, putting over $200 million on the table. In different RFID sectors, Assa Abloy buys at least one RFID company every year. Inside Contactless has just raised $38 million to boost its effort on RFID enabled mobile phones with the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer Nokia leading the group of investors. Clearly RFID is taking off - big time.

In the build up to the annual IDTechEx RFID USA event in Boston this February and the latest IDTechEx RFID forecasts, Raghu Das reviews RFID progress in 2007.

The prosperous RFID business is on track to grow from about $5 billion in 2007 today to over $25 billion in 2017. Without collusion, most analysts agree to figures in that region and several of them see huge volumes of extremely low cost tags forming a part of the growth - even hundreds of billions in ten years from now. This seems to sit awkwardly with some press reporting that RFID retail initiatives have stalled. As one of those analysts, let IDTechEx explain.

IDTechEx has been on the road again, finding out what is the latest in the RFID world. We recently went to Japan, where we met with several companies very active with major projects in the field, but in different sectors. Here we summarise the progress of RFID in Japan.

RFID for Animals, Food and Farming will become the largest RFID market of all because it will benefit the food supply chain in a huge number of ways including livestock disease control and merchandising prepared food.

Trusted independent printed electronics and RFID consultancy moves global HQ to U.S. and appoints new German based director.

It was sad that the Food and Drug Administration backed off from urgently pushing through standards and rapid adoption of RFID at item level on drugs, after its earlier firm lead in 2005-6. However, its recommendation remains but with industry left to set the pace.

This year, for the first time, China has become the world's largest market for RFID by value. A new report

The adoption of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is increasing significantly, and the time is right to understand what has been done so lessons and paybacks can be learnt.

IDTechEx has recently travelled to major RFID events in Europe and North America. Here are our conclusions on industry progress so far until mid 2007.

The market for RFID continues to surge forward, with investments, acquisitions and orders at record levels. The premier European IDTechEx conference RFID Europe, on the 18-19 September in Cambridge UK, will air all these aspects.

Airports and airlines have been trialling RFID baggage tagging for at least fifteen years. There has been significant delay while they kept trialling incompatible solutions. However, that has now changed.

The prices of RFID tags and systems vary widely between applicational sectors. To some extent this is driven by their various levels of required complexity but the primary driving force is the competitive landscape of both the user and the supplier.

The main emphasis of RFID use and supply has radically changed course. That was the message of the large IDTechEx RFID Smart Labels USA event in Boston last week. The business is booming in just about every sector other than the supply of pallet and case tagging to retailer and military mandates.

Novel, Water-based Conductive Ink from Acheson Improves RFID Antenna Production

Working Group for IEEE Rubee™ Network Standard meeting in Boston on Feb 20

In the last few weeks alone, orders for well over US$100 million of contactless (ie RFID) smart cards and associated systems have been placed. The business is surging forward with the percentage of smart cards that are contactless rising to 16% of deliveries in 2007 after having been stuck at around 5% for the preceding twenty years. Learn more.

The RFID business is booming on a broad front, with most sectors profitable, aside from the shakeout in supplying readers and labels for consumer goods companies.

RFID is being adopted worldwide but with very great differences of emphasis as revealed by the IDTechEx Knowledgebase of over 2450 case studies in 92 countries. This is a tale of four, very different continents.

In 2007, approximately 650 billion articles will be sent through postal and courier systems around the world. After retail, the tagging of each postal item is the next largest potential market for RFID by volume of tags. There are numerous significant RFID roll-outs in this sector which are under publicized, and here Raghu Das from IDTechEx summarises the latest progress.

Where are the RFID success stories and in which market sectors? Here Teresa Henry highlights the leading adopter nations, the big spenders and surprise niches for RFID implementation.

Has the pallet/case market for RFID tags and other hardware become the nearest thing to a black hole in the RFID universe in 2006, thanks to reluctant mandated customers, technical problems and pricing for volumes that never came?

The IDTechEx RFID Smart Labels Europe Conference and Exhibition on September 19-20 broke new ground, showing how the subject has moved on. Here are some highlights of the event.

Contactless smart cards are the largest RFID sector by far and the business is booming. As a result of the reduced cost of the latest contactless systems IDTechEx forecast a boom in RFID smart cards.

In RFID, the amount of acquisition activity is picking up fast but is still well below what the market demands. With about 1000 companies doing something significant in the RFID value chain and mergers being less than the rate of formation of new RFID companies, there is scope for much more M&A activity and for the weak to disappear.

The September edition of the IDTechEx monthly journal, Smart Labels Analyst, is free. Follow the link to download your copy.

While many agree that China will become the largest market for RFID, few know of what is going on there or even companies involved in the sector. Therefore IDTechEx technical consultant Ning Xiao has toured China visiting RFID companies, users and the government to uncover the latest developments. IDTechEx has discovered progress from dozens of Chinese companies and surprising major RFID activities. In this article Ning Xiao summarises his learnings, which can be read in full in the IDTechEx journal Smart Labels Analyst.

If you are looking to raise money for your business involved in RFID, Printed Electronics or Smart Packaging, IDTechEx can offer free help.

The correlation between the volume and pricing of RFID tags has been a much debated topic in recent times. Here is Dr Peter Harrop's forecast on pricing for the next ten years and his justification behind the figures.

Item level RFID is set for substantial growth over the next decade. A new study from IDTechEx forecasts and explores key markets that will apply item-level tagging, advances in technology and the mass adoption that will follow. Dr. Peter Harrop from IDTechEx summarises this study. See www.idtechex.com/item for more information.

RFID in healthcare is growing rapidly to become a $2.1 billion global business in 2016. Smart packaging for healthcare has additional value, for example, ensuring that people take the correct pills at the right time. RFID can improve the lives of patients in many different ways...

With IATA's decision to settle on one standard for RFID tags in airline baggage that sector of the market is due to rise from $20 million in 2006 to $100 million in 2016. RFID will also be used by airlines to tag crucial aeroplane parts and by airports to improve security...

The IDTechEx RFID Knowledgebase, the world's largest searchable database of RFID in action, has reached 2000 cases, revealing surprising trends. In this article Dr Peter Harrop analyses lessons, global trends and statistics from 2000 RFID implementations.

Item level tagging is happening faster than most realize - 200 million tags will be used in 2006 for item level tagging alone - mainly on apparel, books and drugs to name a few applications.The seventh annual RFID Smart Labels Europe event focuses on the progress to item level tagging, giving analysis of suitable technologies from global experts.

An analysis of RFID adoption in New Zealand and Australia. Australia and New Zealand have some leadership positions in adopting RFID but in some other respects, these countries are laggards in adopting RFID and need to benchmark against best practice elsewhere and catch up. Learn of the major RFID projects in these countries so far.

An update of Wal-Mart's RFID progress, paybacks so far and experience from consumer packaged goods suppliers.